


Gentle, Understanding, and Tall

by CaptainMallory



Category: Star Wars, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Ben Solo - Freeform, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, F/M, Fix It Fic, Fix-It, Grief, POV Rey (Star Wars), Redeemed Ben Solo, Rey - Freeform, Rey Needs A Hug, Rey Solo, Short One Shot, Soft Ben Solo, Temporary Character Death, angst angst angst, force ghost, grieving ben solo, saving what we love, short and sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:07:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22780747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainMallory/pseuds/CaptainMallory
Summary: Tattooine is the perfect graveyard to grieve when you've cut yourself off from The Force.
Relationships: Rey & Ben Solo, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 3
Kudos: 27





	Gentle, Understanding, and Tall

**Author's Note:**

> This was the first post-TROS work I wrote when I was deeply confused and grieving for our babies. This little shorty is my love poem to Rey and Ben Solo, who will one day find each other again, someway, somehow.

_“Gentle. Understanding. And Tall” --Adam Driver._

Rey thumbed over the saber scar on her arm absentmindedly. Tattooine still held her here, though everything within her power said she could leave, she felt called to stay. It had been two weeks since Ben had saved her, and she had lost him. She still hadn’t cried.  
Every day well into night Rey walked a tattoo around the Lars homestead. Something here was powerful, filled with sadness, hard, dark memories. It felt like the place to grieve, this graveyard, so where were her tears? 

Rey pressed on the scar, and not even the flesh memories of the wound moved her. 

“Be with me,” she called out to The Force, feeling for him. And The Force was silent. 

BB-8 had given up asking her why they stayed. He merely rolled by to check on her from time to time. He joined her for her meals, although they had since fallen very silent, and Rey was hardly eating.

“Be with me,” she began to beg into the darkness when the twin suns wouldn’t answer.

Another night, another trudging foot path, another too hot day under twin suns that only reminded her of Jakuu, of what she had lost. Her parents were dead, her masters and friends were dead, her soulmate was dead and yet hope was cheering and parading through the galaxy. How could she go back and welcome the joy of it all when she felt so numb?

“Be with me,” she crooned to a void that was stubbornly silent. Still there were no tears.

On the last night of the third week, Rey trembled in the cold desert planet’s bleak night. And finally, she sank to her knees and screamed, a wretched howl that shook the sand. Her sobs wracked her body, and her nails dug into the suntanned flesh of her arms. Rey doubled over, heaving from an empty stomach, as wave after wave of grief came over her. She sobbed herself breathless, only to gasp for air that left her trembling in the cold and the icy wind stabbed at her raw lungs. All around her was lost, and her cries echoed through a silent plain. After what felt like a lifetime, her tears were wasted, and only dry wracking sobs shook her from her core.

“Why won’t you answer me, Ben?” 

“It’s hard to answer you when you cut yourself off from the force, Rey,” answered a gentle voice from somewhere in front of her.

Rey peered through red, raw eyes, her dusty face streaked with her tears, caught in a moment of disbelief. ‘I’m going insane,’ she thought, ‘I’ve been alone so long I’m hearing things.’

‘I’m here,’ came the warm, familiar voice echoing in her head.

Rey blinked away fresh tears, trying to command her body to look when she was so exhausted of looking. She felt a cool hand catch her under the chin and then curl around her cheek, wiping away the grief.

“Ben?”  
“Rey. Rey I’m so s--”  
“How could you leave me!?” 

Rey nearly flung herself from her knees, but Ben caught her by her arms, running his hands over the marks she had clawed in her triceps. Trying yet to still heal her broken heart like her broken flesh. He sunk down to the sands, pulling her close. Rey sniffled and put her head against his chest, but there was no warmth in his ghost. No fluttering heart, no breath caught in his throat before his laugh rung in her ears. Ben was not truly with her, and that was almost more painful to bear than being alone, cut off from him. All that was warm and alive in him lived in her head--she could hardly bear it.

“The world, the galaxy, deserves to have you in it,” Ben said as he stroked her hair and held her to him as they knelt in the cold sands of Tattooine. “Why did you stay here for so long in this grave? I want to understand.”

Rey finally turned her face up to his, trying to give him an answer, but she couldn’t find her voice. She studied his blue visage, swallowing hard. He was still just as striking. His strong brow raised in concern, his soft lips, his hair falling in curly waves around his jaw, his face renewed from the scar she gave him, filed with gentle iridescent freckles that glittered from the beyond, from the--

“You’re trapped in the world between worlds, aren’t you Ben?” Rey finally asked. “That’s why I can’t find you in The Force.” She reached a hand up to cup his cheek, running a thumb over where his scar was healed. A cheek she feared she would never truly touch again.

“...I don’t know,” he said after a pause. Ben found himself looking into her big doe eyes, still shot through with red from pain and salty tears. Her face was flushed and puffy but there was life, so much life in Rey. He squeezed her a little tighter. “I tried to find you, I called out to you, Rey, but you were nowhere to be found. It was like a void, a black hole, where you should have been,” he finished. 

“I’ve been looking for you, calling for you,” Rey bit her lip to fight back more tears and sniffled. “It’s been three weeks since you..” She lost her voice again. She couldn’t bear to say the word, or maybe he would truly be lost.

“The Force joined us the first time, and it led us back to each other,” Ben spoke softly, holding her gaze. He was afraid he would be called away into the unknown again any second, and if he was, he wanted the last thing he saw to be Rey’s eyes.

There was a long silence between them, only the sound of Rey’s pounding heart could be heard. Her mind was moving so fast, trying to think of all ways, all possibilities she could come up with to keep him with her.

Rey shifted her weight, and lifted herself up. Ben was so tall she had to get on her knees while he sat there to look him directly in the eye. She cupped his face, pushing curls away from his eyes.

“Wherever you are Ben, I am going to find you. I will save you as you saved me. I… Ben, I love you.” The last words were almost a whisper, a promise.

“You already have saved me, love,” Ben promised her. 

Rey pressed her mouth into his, for the second time. It was cold but all still familiar. Ben slid a hand behind her head, wishing he could smell her hair, feel her warmth. A single tear fell from Rey onto Ben’s cheek.

‘Be with me,’ she thought one last time, desperately, pressing her hand to his chest, over his heart, holding the kiss for as long as she could. 

And there was a flutter.


End file.
